A brief introduction to Backgammon

Posted on July 18, 2008
Filed Under Games |

Backgammon is a board game for two players in which the playing pieces, called checkers, are moved according to the roll of dice. A backgammon set consists of a board, two sets of 15 checkers, two pairs of dice, a doubling cube, and dice cups. A player wins by removing all of his checkers from the board. There are many variants of backgammon, most of which share common traits. Backgammon is a member of the tables family, one of the oldest classes of board games in the world.

Although luck plays an important role, there is a large scope for strategy. With each roll of the dice a player must choose from numerous options for moving his checkers and anticipate possible counter-moves by the opponent. Players may raise the stakes during the game. There is an established repertory of common tactics and occurrences.

Like chess, backgammon has been studied with great interest by computer scientists. Owing to this research, backgammon software has been developed capable of beating world-class human players.

International competition

Prior to 1979, there was no single world championship competition in backgammon, although a number of major tournaments were held in Las Vegas, Nevada and the Bahamas. Since 1979, the World Backgammon Championship in Monte Carlo has been widely acknowledged as the top international tournament. The Monte Carlo tournament draws thousands of players and spectators, and is played over the course of a week.

By the 21st century, the largest international tournaments had established the basis of a tour for top professional players. Major tournaments are held yearly in St. Tropez, Rio de Janeiro, Dallas, and Venice. PartyGaming sponsored a tournament in the Bahamas in January 2007 with a prize pool of one million dollars, the largest for any tournament to date.

Gambling

When backgammon is played for money, the most common arrangement is to assign a monetary value to each point, and to play to a certain score, or until either player chooses to stop. The stakes are raised by gammons, backgammons, and use of the doubling cube. Backgammon is sometimes available in casinos. As with most gambling games, successful play requires a combination of luck and skill, as a single dice roll can sometimes significantly change the outcome of the game.

Internet play

Backgammon software has been developed not only to play and analyze games, but also to facilitate play between humans over the internet. Dice rolls are provided by random or pseudorandom number generators. Real-time online play began with the First Internet Backgammon Server in 1992. It is the longest running non-commercial backgammon server and retains an international community of backgammon players. Yahoo Games offers a Java-based online backgammon room, and MSN Games offers a game based on ActiveX. Online gambling providers began to expand their offerings to include backgammon in 2006.

Backgammon has recently become a popular online gambling activity for many Internet gamers and attracts all different sorts of people and players. You can play online backgammon and find thousands of players from all over the world. You also get the chance of becoming a world champ in the most lucrative Backgammon events and tournaments.

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